Sir, - I was disappointed to read Ulick O'Connor's letter which appeared in your New Year's Eve edition ("Obstacles to peace"), but I am delighted to accept Mr O'Connor's invitation to confirm without reservation, that there is no deliberate connection between newspaper reports concerning one of the members of Senator Mitchell's staff, the release of Sean O'Callaghan and an occasion when Mr Adams and Mr Kelly were in a car stopped by an Army patrol.
On the first of these, both the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Sir Patrick Mayhew, and his Ministerial colleague, Michael Ancram, made clear in separate media interviews on November 30th and December 1st that they not only accepted assurances given by the Senator and Ms Pope but also that they had seen nothing to lead them to cast doubt on these assurances.
On the second point, O'Callaghan's release was determined solely in accordance with the requirements of the criminal justice system and had no connection with the other events mentioned.
Mr O'Connor refers to an incident where Mr Adams and Mr Kelly were delayed for approximately 30 minutes after a dispute when their vehicle was stopped by an Army patrol they were in fact, allowed to continue their journey unhindered once the police arrived at the scene. The fact that the army has again been deployed on the streets in Northern Ireland at all is due to the breakdown of the IRA ceasefire. Such security activity, sadly, has been shown to be justified by a recent spate of IRA attempts at mounting bombing attacks, including the attack at Lisburn when a soldier was killed, and more recently on New Year's Eve when republican terrorists left a 1,000lb van bomb outside Belfast Castle where a wedding reception was taking place.
A convincingly unequivocal ceasefire is what the people of Northern Ireland want and would do much for the talks process which resumes on January 13th it would pave the way for Sinn Fein to join the talks.
My Government and the Irish Government have worked hard for several years now to bring about all party negotiations. Nearly a year before the IRA ended their ceasefire, the two Governments set out their views on the key elements which might constitute an overall settlement (see "A Framework for Accountable Government in Northern Ireland" published by my government and "A New Framework for Agreement" published by both governments on February 22nd, 1995).
As the Taoiseach himself said at a joint press conference with Mr Major following their meeting one December 9th, "The onus is on the republican movement to restore the ceasefire credibly at the earliest moment". - Yours, etc.,
Charge d'Affaires,
British Embassy, Dublin.